A Different Path
by LiveLaughLovex
Summary: Agents Skye Coulson and Grant Ward navigate a partnership that just can't stop becoming more complicated.


**Author's Note: I reposted a new version of this. I hope you enjoy this. Also, feel free to read The Original Path, which is the very, very short introduction to Skye and Ward's partnership. I'm also posting both on my brand-new AO3 account under the same name.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.**

It was raining in London, England, which essentially meant that Agent Skye Coulson was very, very pissed off at Mother Nature.

Sure, she knew that the stereotypical story of London was that it always rained and everyone stayed inside to drink tea, but did the weather have to match the stereotype every single day that she was forced to be there? She was running out of pumps to wear that hadn't been soaked or muddied, and she was pretty sure that the workers at the dry-cleaning place that she frequented were very, very close to knowing her by name. The people at the shoe store a block from her temporary apartment in the capitol already did.

She was here for a very good, very important reason: combatting cyberterrorism. That was the only reason that she hadn't punched anybody yet. No matter what the older members of SHIELD thought, terrorists didn't need bombs to be dangerous anymore. With free access to computers, they could be just as dangerous with a mouse as they could be with a trigger. Unfortunately, nobody in the agency seemed all that willing to drop their life and head to London for six weeks, which was why she had volunteered. As she trudged out of her apartment for the final time prior to her return home and was immediately hit with rain, she was once again reminded to never willingly offer her services for something such as this ever again.

"Well, don't you look like somebody pissed in your tea this morning," Agent Charlotte Harrison greeted her, extending a file for her to take the moment that she set foot inside SHIELD's secondary base of operations in London. "You know, you will scare the junior agents if you go into this lecture looking that angry."

"They could all use a good scare," Skye replied, taking a sip of the coffee that she held and making a face. "Why is it that no one in this entire country seems to be able to make a cup of coffee? It's coffee grounds and hot water, not rocket science."

"Well, you've spent so much time around Ward and his coffee that you can actually drink without putting three pounds of sugar in first that you are probably spoiled," Harrison said with a smirk. "By the way, you still sticking to your 'we're just partners' mantra?"

"Okay, it's not a mantra, Harrison. It's the truth. I know that you and everyone else that hasn't spent a lot of time with us on missions thinks that we get wild between the sheets, but we don't. Now, I haven't had my caffeine for about six weeks, my partner is quite possibly going to either get his ass kicked or killed in Paris, and I have to deal with agents that don't know signs of cyberterrorism from signs of online shopping, so if you don't stop calling us 'horizontal mamba' partners, I will probably put our friendship at risk." Skye smirked when Harrison only chuckled. "Now, I am going to go try to find a decent cup of coffee."

"You're surrounded by cops that were born and raised in the United Kingdom, so I don't think you're going to have much luck with that. Jackson and I are the only two Yanks stationed here permanently, and we both suck at making a good cup of joe, too." Harrison sighed as she glanced at the pager that was going off on her hip. "I have to go pull a cadet's head out of their ass; excuse me."

"I feel like you say that much more than you should," Skye called after her friend, causing the other woman to shake her head. Skye groaned internally as she headed for the lecture hall that she would be spending the next three hours in.

"Hello to all of you," she greeted when everyone had filed into the room. "My name is Agent Skye Coulson, and I am the Director of Communications at SHIELD's main base of operations in Washington, D.C. If anyone here has visited the Triskelion, you'll know that we spend as much time combatting cyberterrorism as we do regular terrorism. For almost a century, the most dangerous people in this world were terrorists with bombs. Then we invented the house computer, and the laptop, and the smart phone, and now, the most dangerous people in this world are people that are able to access classified information. We call them traitors, we arrest them for treason, but the damage is done."

She looked around the room, meeting the eyes of several of the agents and nodding. "You think that people who are trained in violent acts are the people that you should fear the most, but that's not true. We are in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other nations in the Middle East that we aren't particularly wanted in. We have taken lives to save many more lives, but those people that we have eliminated have been mourned by loved ones. And there is no one more angry than someone who has held a dead child or spouse in their arms after a deadly injury was inflicted upon them by someone that wasn't even meant to be in the country."

She sighed as she turned towards the board. "You are used to being faced with bombs, guns, and knives, but many of you have no idea what to do when faced with laptops and an anger that many think of as righteous. So, that's why you're all here today. That's why this lecture was mandatory. Because you all need to realize that not all the battles that you are involved in will be fought against other agents or other soldiers. Sometimes, they will be fought by people that are just angry enough to want you dead. And there is now more than one way to kill you. So, let's begin."

Three hours later, Skye wandered back into her apartment, her eyes and her body tired. She had known that the agents would have questions, but she hadn't thought that they would have that many questions. Then again, she had essentially implied that not understanding cyberterrorism would likely result in their deaths, so many of those questions might have been her fault.

It was only eleven in the morning, but she warmed some leftover pasta anyway. She then sat down to look through the file that Fury had given her before she had left six weeks prior. She and Ward were expected to infiltrate a gang with known ties to a human trafficking and experimentation group within the next few weeks, which meant that she needed to start planning their extraction plan almost as soon as she arrived in Raleigh. Well, it actually meant that she should have started planning the mission six weeks before, but her father's procrastination seemed to be a genetic condition.

The phone rang, and she placed the glass of water that she had been sipping from on her coffee table before reaching for the device and smiling when she caught sight of the Caller ID. She pressed the phone to her ear after accepting the call.

"You know, I thought that the point of being in Paris was that you wouldn't be calling every two seconds," she joked, causing her partner to laugh on the other end of the line. "From what I understood, you were supposed to be completing the mission today so that you can make it to Raleigh within the same time frame as me."

"Well, I finished the mission. Very little blood, none of it mine," Grant Ward informed her from his end. "Fury was very proud."

"Fury doesn't have emotions," Skye reminded with a chuckle. "So, have you looked over this file for the Mexico mission?"

"Enough to know that the people we're going up against are sick bastards that deserve to have their faces pummeled in," Ward replied. "Do you have any thoughts about it?"

"You're right. They're sick bastards," Skye agreed. "Fury wants me to help figure out the extraction plan. Do you have any thoughts on that?"

"Not really," Ward said with a sigh. "We do what has to be done to stop them and then get the hell out of Dodge. Seems like it's pretty self-explanatory to me."

"Well, I don't think Fury would appreciate that being placed in his official file, so thank you so much for that." She ran a hand through her hair. "Did you know that Morse got shot?" she asked suddenly, taking his silence as an answer. "They were on a mission in Iran. The guy shot out her tires, then shot her. It seemed a little too similar to Romanoff's bad mission a few months back for me."

"Well, people in Iran aren't all that fond of us, rookie. They never have been." Ward sighed. "How many people did Hunter threaten to punch out?"

"I heard at least six," Skye replied, both of them silently amused by their friends' relationship. "It's crazy, you know. They can fight like cats and dogs, but at the end of the day, they'd lie, die, and kill for each other."

"I think that's most partnerships, marriage or not," Ward stated. "How was your lecture this morning? Your flight leaves for Washington at one, right?"

"Yeah," Skye confirmed. "I have to choose my replacement tomorrow, leave before noon, brief my team in Raleigh, and then meet with Morse. I should be good to go after all of that." She sighed. "You should be there a few hours after me, right?"

"I will be," Ward said. "By the way, Charlotte asked about you."

"Charlotte, as in your baby sister that's sixteen years old and acts like she's thirty?" Skye questioned. "Why did she ask about me?"

"Well, she lives in Raleigh, might move in with me. Being on the outside when your abusive father and brother are politicians that can easily find you isn't exactly ideal." Ward sighed as he said this. "If you have a problem with it…"

"Ward, there's no problem. She's your family. If you want her with you, then move her in with you. If she needs a safe place, you know I have no objections to that. I've gone to you for a safe place before after bad missions, and she hasn't exactly had the best life."

"You know, I'm almost completely sure that you're a much better person than I am," Ward said with a chuckle.

"Oh, I know I'm a better person than you are," Skye shot back with a smile. "Look, get home safe, and then we can talk about it, okay? By the way, how long are you going to be in Virginia?"

"I cancelled it, asked if Trip wanted to do it. He was very eager," Ward informed her.

"Oh, I'm sure that he was just so eager to train those cadets to be specialists." Skye smiled slightly. "Oh! Did you stop by that bakery in Paris that I told you about?" His silence answered that question, and she groaned. "Ward, you really need to get a life. Please tell me that you at least got a tacky tourist picture taken in front of the Eiffel Tower."

"Skye, I was being chased the only time that I was remotely close to the Eiffel Tower, and eating pastries is not a good way to spend your time when there are a dozen people that want you dead." She could hear Ward's smile. "By the way, I've heard at least six agents here that are maybe twenty years old call you hot. I mean, I don't disagree, but still."

Skye chuckled at his comment. "You saying things like that is the reason that Harrison thinks that we're more than just partners, just so you know. So the next time people get those assumptions in their minds, you get to explain to them that they're wrong."

"Well, I will gladly do that, but I'm not going to stop telling you that you're attractive. That's asking something of me that I can't give. I'm an awful liar when I'm not being paid to lie."

"Understood," Skye replied through her chuckles. "Be safe on the flight home. I will see you in Raleigh."

"I will see you in Raleigh," Ward replied, disconnecting the call.

Damn, Skye thought as she stared at the phone in her hand, feeling a strange sense of disappointment. Maybe she had been lying to Harrison, after all. Well, maybe she had been lying to Harrison about her feelings. She knew she wasn't lying about Ward's. That was probably what hurt the most.


End file.
